Plant & Crystal Magic 18: Copal & Smokey Quartz
It’s so easy to become overwhelmed, especially when living in times of change and uncertainty. Sometimes we know very well what is getting beneath our skin and making us feel out of sorts. But, often, when we start to feel less like our usual selves, either more anxious or stagnant, unusually reactive, overly sensitive, or else shut down, we are reacting to the unconscious collection of psychic impressions from others in our lives and around us. Being empathetic means that we can imagine ourselves in the situation of another, and it is an important quality to cultivate. Being empathic, however, means that we are absorbing the emotional impressions and energetic conditions of others around us into our own psychic sphere. There are plenty of people who are aware of living with this quality, and they can use it to understand and help others. Yet, when we fall accidentally into this state of psychic openness, or when we aren’t aware that it is happening, we can quickly become imbalanced, even ill, and certainly depleted by this lack of energetic boundary. Although for some it can be considered a gift or a special mode of perception, for many others it is a consequence of an energetic field that has become diffuse, violated, overburdened by all we try to hold, or weakened by neglect, to the point that we are not able to distinguish the line between our emotions or issues to solve and those that belong to people we love, encounter, or even read about. This kind of blurring of boundaries keeps us spinning our wheels emotionally, feeling ungrounded and unstable, as well as less capable of focusing our energy on what what is important to us. Most of us never received any kind of early instruction about how to take care of ourselves energetically, and we live in a culture with a lot of shared information and very little ritual to help us move what we collect, so it is no surprise that we fall easily into this state of imbalance. Luckily, with a little self care and practice, a compromised energy field can be repaired and become the shield and source of vitality that it is meant to be. In service of this, I’d like to offer some insights into two very potent allies for energetic wellness: Copal and Smoky Quartz.
Copal
In Curanderismo, heavy emotions are named Aires, or winds. This means that emotional states are seen as winds that move through us and between us. Their purpose is ultimately to show us what is out of alignment with our deepest selves, meaning they bring imbalances to our attention by making us very uncomfortable. Yet, they can collect within us and cloud our senses, creating illness and imbalance as well. They can also be contagious, as we absorb heavy emotions that move around us, especially when many people near us are feeling similar things. Think of how fear and panic spread so quickly among us. This creates not only a form of emotional imbalance and overwhelm, but a psychic one as well. Those who can easily see the aura, or energy body, can perceive the build up of emotional energies as color, for example. In the last blog, I described some ways in which our energetic body becomes compromised or weakened, so that it doesn’t serve as the shield it’s meant to be. There are certainly ways for us to heal and strengthen it through perceptual exercises and tending. Copal smoke is a powerful vehicle for cleansing and rebalancing the energy body, as well as improving our emotional, psychic and even physical health. This is why it is one of the primary elements of a Limpia ritual. When the Copal is burning, we are cleansed by the smoke, and that which is in need of release is helped to move again, beyond our physical and energetic forms, and the spaces we inhabit.
Copal is a tree resin which comes from a family of trees known as Burseraceae. It was used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures for healing and ceremony, and continues to be central to Indigenous practices and Curanderismo. There are several different forms of copal, identified by color as well as shape and texture, and each has a specific purpose. Unless you are visiting the markets in Mexico and Central America, you are most likely to come in contact with it in its two or three most common forms: White Copal, Gold or Yellow copal, and Black Copal. All of its forms have the capacity to cleanse energy and simultaneously elevate consciousness, helping us to align with higher frequencies in prayer, ceremony, meditation, and healing. Copal can ground you, create movement and release of heavy energies you may be carrying, empower your energetic field, and elevate you to a higher meditative state where you can interact with the realm of the Divine. If you are more familiar with resins like Frankincense and Myrrh, imagine combining their effects together with a strongly cleansing herb like Sage. This is the purpose and potential of a Copal smudge. Of the three forms I’ve mentioned, White Copal, also known as Copal Pura or Sacred Copal is most used for high ceremony and meditation, while the gold variety often called Mayan Copal or Copal Oro is used more for healing and is especially good at psychic cleansing and clearing the Aires. This is the form that looks most like Amber, and is often confused with it. If your condition feels especially heavy, and you have the suspicion that you may be carrying a kind of lineage curse or psychic attack, Black Copal (Copal Negro) can be used to move more dense energies and to dispel darker forms of magic. Copal Negro should always be burned outside, however, as it makes quite a lot of smoke.
The Mexicas (Aztecs) considered Copal an adaptive medicine, connecting it with the element of water, as well as with the earth. This is because its form can be adapted to suit many physical issues as well. It can provide cooling or warming, as required and can be used for many physical conditions from skin disorders to tooth decay to physical illness. Even in its most commonly used form, as a smoke, it can be gently inhaled to help conditions such as fevers, headaches, congestion, asthma, stomach aches, joint and muscle pain, stress, anxiety, depression, overthinking or worry, trauma, PTSD, and grief, in addition to its metaphysical gifts of cleansing, protection, and connection with the unseen.
As a folk remedy and sacred ceremonial aid, Copal is unparalleled, at least in my opinion, and what is written here is just an introduction. There are many traditions surrounding being a carrier of Copal medicine, including how to burn it in a traditional vessel called a Popoxcomitl (or Sahumerio, in Spanish, the post colonial form), how to dispose of the ash, and the manner in which you smudge a person or a space properly, with reverence and gratitude. For most who seek to burn copal for personal healing and energetic cleansing, a good place to start building relationship with this medicine is to begin with respect and clear intention, and to find a ceramic container that could hold a burning charcoal. It will help to put some clean sand at the bottom to absorb the heat. Most charcoals are somewhat toxic to breath, and should be burned outside. For those who are sensitive or prefer something more natural, there are also coconut coals, though they will have to be relit periodically. Copal can also be found in the form of an incense stick, which is less traditional, but still quite useful and easy to use.
Here are some of the energetic and ceremonial uses for Copal smoke:
To cleanse and transmute dense energies and Aires
To dispel dark uses of magic and psychic attack, and bring protection.
To balance and restore a damaged energetic body
To dispel heavy and cluttered thoughts
To bring light to the soul
To support a soul retrieval
To help a soul to cross over
To connect with divine and unseen forces
To honor and connect with the Ancestors
To honor and connect with Spirits of the Land
To offer thanks and express gratitude
To clear the mind and heart
To cleanse and bless the home, work spaces, and ceremony sites
To cleans and bless sacred tools
To call dreams, visions, and psychic abilities
To cleanse, ground, and rebalance the self after performing healing rituals, or experiencing events wherein you have absorbed too much
Take the smoke in your hands and bring it to each time to different parts of your body in the following order: your head, your heart, your navel, your sexual area, your legs and feet. If you can, include your back as well. When finished, give thanks, touch the ground, and bring your hands together. Ometeotl.
Smokey Quartz
There are many protective stones, but Smokey Quartz is unique among them. Smokey Quartz is perhaps the most powerful stone for cleansing the energy field, both the aura and the chakras or tononalcayos, and providing a strong sense of grounding, while still amplifying one’s connection with the realms of dreaming, intuition, and manifestation. It seems to do two things at once, pulling negative energies from our field to transmute them and ground them within the Earth, and at the same time pulling our dreams and inspirations into manifestation, and the unseen and mystical beings closer to our perception. This stormy colored, grey and black stone is a potent aid for those of us who are prone to becoming ungrounded, overwhelmed with information, and at times unable to integrate the insights or spiritual knowledge we access in an intuitive manner. Acting to reconnect us with the Earth circuit and our innate ability to cycle energies within her depths, it enlivens the cord between us. This allows us to release what we need to more easily, and to draw up energy for our rebalancing and the recovery of vitality and clarity.
Smokey Quartz can help to ground that which is spiritual into the physical realm. This can happen in several ways. When we are overwhelmed with information and thought, it acts as a catalyst for finding a clear purpose and a means of acting on our thoughts and insights, allowing us to respond appropriately, rather than being frozen in the realm of mind. It can bring a sense of clarity and organization to a dysregulated mind, because it works to regulate our whole energetic system, so that we are neither depleted or holding too much energy without a way to move it. Because it is working with the Earth to transmute challenging and dense energies, it is essentially able to cleanse our aura and energetic system, ground the disruptive energies, and then make them into something that can be used in a new way, as simply energy for something else more beautiful to grow. This kind of Earth power has a name in Nahuatl. It is the power of the twin aspects of our Earth Mother called Tlazolteotl. and Tlazohtlateotl, the force which takes what we need to release, and the force which makes things grow in beauty. They work together to transmute all that needs cleansing, healing, and renewal. It is the special power of our Divine Mother Earth, and in Smokey Quartz we see her dual gift in the form of a beautiful grey and black crystal. In addition to supporting this form of energy composting and manifestation magic, Smokey Quartz brings the spiritual into the physical by pulling beings from the unseen realms closer to our energetic field so that we are more able to perceive them. Wearing or working with Smokey Quartz can increase your ability to see that which is usually hidden from our conscious awareness, including Spirits of the Land or Faerie realm, ghosts, Ancestors, and guides. This is a strong ally for people who are more comfortable in the dream realms than in the everyday world. It can help one embrace being embodied and feel more confident in creating change and manifesting goals in one’s worldly life, without dampening the connection to spiritual territories and high frequency energies. In fact, it may well improve our ability to align with and integrate these energies, while offering us protection and an active system of purification.
There is also a special and quite rare form of Smokey Quartz called Morion Quartz that adds more nuance to the benefits listed above. Morion Quartz is black, or nearly nearly black, instead of grey, due to the addition of organic impurities combining with the silicon dioxide mineral Quartz. This addition makes a subtle difference in its energetic properties. Morion Quartz is an excellent support for the kind of energetic issues that result from our own deep rooted negative emotions, as well as the thoughtforms they create and unconsciously direct. It can help us to acknowledge and then release or transform feelings like fear, resentment, rage, anxiety, depression, defiance, powerlessness, shame, and grief. It can also dispel the same kinds of dense energies, negative emotions, and thoughtforms that are sent to us from others. It’s strong grounding energy can help us feel more safe in our bodies, in addition to balancing our aura and energetic system to cultivate a more healthy, positive outlook. It works with our system or our environment as a whole, bringing in balance, calm, harmony, protection, and alignment with the Mother Earth. When someone is upset, holding a Morion crystal can be very soothing and have a quick calming effect. Working with it intentionally can support the cleansing of long held shadow issues, offering the courage and the gentle push needed to face what we don’t want to see, and remove it before it causes more harm. Morion is also good at empowering other stones around it.
Smokey Quartz and Morion Quartz get their color from a natural form of radiation (though watch out for manmade versions). They do not pose a threat to us in terms of radioactivity, and in fact can help to counter the more harmful effects of things like chemotherapy and exposure to radioactive materials or the electromagnetic fields we encounter in many aspects of our modern lives. Though they are adept at transmuting energies to the Earth, the ease with which they absorb energy means that they should probably be cleansed now and then with water, smoke, or moonlight.
Suggestion for working with Copal and Smokey Quartz:
Gather your copal and crystal allies. Offer 4 breaths to these potent energies, offering with your exhales first the best energy of your dreams, second the best energy of your emotions, third the best energy of your thoughts, and fourth the best energy of your actions.
Light you charcoal and once burning add one small copal crystal, or a pinch if your copal is more close to a powder form. (Or light your incense stick, if that is your preferred form.)
Cleanse yourself with the smoke, as described above. Take it in your hands to your primary energetic centers.
With windows open, cleanse your home or ceremonial space, bringing the smoke to all corners.
Cleanse your Smokey Quartz or Morion crystals, and any other sacred tools.
Hold the crystal in your hands and focus on your intention.
Use your intuition and perceptual skills to scan your energetic field or aura for diffuse areas, dark spots, holes, and threads that are attached to other people and places. Use your breath and intention to bring your strands closer to your physical body. Releasing what is not yours back to where it belongs, and calling all parts of you home.
Sweep your aura with your crystal to feel for cold spots. Ask your crystal to help repair all problem areas, and transmute the dense and negative energies. Ask, respectfully, for insight into how to restore your vitality, balance, and positive outlook. Breath and listen. Allow the crystal to offer support, protection and grounding, while visualizing your energetic body whole, bright, and compact around you.
Hold your crystal at your solar plexus. Ask it to transmute all the negative emotional energy and thoughtforms that you might be sending into positive energy that is now dedicated to the Divine and aligned with the Earth Mother, so that it cannot revert to its previous state. Pay attention to what you perceive as this happens, and release what you need to through breath, tears, sounds, or other somatic responses. Trust your intuition.
Bring your hands together to complete and offer thanks.
Ometeotl.
May we feel balanced, capable, serene, and safe in our bodies, minds, and hearts, regardless of what happens around us.
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez, originally for publication with the eleventh house.